


Blue Rose Burning

by Caritas_Lavellan



Series: Earth Mind: Alternative Perspectives [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a bridging story between <i>Under the Fresco</i> and <i>Not that kind of wolf</i>. It starts in Eleuia Lavellan and Solas' timelines before either <i>Mind Heart</i> or <i>Under the Fresco</i>, but after they have finished the events of Trespasser. </p><p>In Caritas' timeline both stories have already been written in the Fade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Following my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He died in the darkness so a blue rose could bloom._
> 
>   
> 
> 
> But she wasn't blooming, she was burning.

If only the Exalted Council really had been just one more crazy dream. Eleuia Lavellan glared at the map of Tevinter, Cole's words echoing in her mind. She took a dagger in her remaining hand. With a single sharp thrust she drove it right through the map and deep into the hard wood below.

_I am going to get him back._

****

That night Eleuia dreamt she spoke with Caritas.

"I don't understand," she wept.

Eleuia lay on a sofa with her head in the other woman's lap, tears streaming down her face. Caritas stroked her hair for a time, thinking how best to console or explain. Eleuia's world was not the same as her own: the differences between them not technicalities to be discarded.

"First thing, he's still alive. Second, he still wants you to be alive. Soft, not stone."

"He was the same, but different," whispered Eleuia.

"Yes. That's who he is as well, now. You should be prepared for him being even more different if you track him down outside the Crossroads. He was trying to warn you about that."

"So he still loves me?"

"How could he not? You are his _vhenan_."

"But I can't let him destroy the world. Surely there must be another way."

"I think there is, yes. If you are strong and brave to hate the dark enough to save. Did you see anything in his eyes? How did you feel when you looked into them?"

"I felt he was sad."

"Yes," said Caritas, tears now shining in her eyes too. "He is. It is. You must endure. It's ok to be angry. Come and see me any time, and I will try to help."

Eleuia sighed. "I feel like a Templar, trying to track down a renegade mage. But it isn't a Chantry or the Conclave that's at risk this time, but the whole of Thedas."

"Yes. Templars need lyrium. Or something like it, anyway. Let's go and get some chocolate."


	2. Our Orlesian Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  _Bare your blade and raise it high._   
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Should the blade be a sword or a scalpel?

Caritas gulped down another mug of tea, grateful for kindly colleagues. They could tell she wasn't sleeping well these days. But there was no way to tell them the real explanation: I'm grieving for a character I met in a game.

So that dream in August, of the Solas living on, entombed in stone, had been true sight after all.

She remembered playing Origins and the bravery and determination that was the golem Shale, once a dwarven warrior.

She thought of Zevran's regrets and the pain of Fenris' lyrium markings. And that they had chosen those paths.

She remembered the Lost Temple of Dirthamen and Solas saying _it is alive, because what it is connected to is alive_. And _I will never forget you._

She remembered writing Sophiyel asking whether all priests of Dirthamen suffered the same fate: despair.

These games had too much foreshadowing for anyone with a gift for matching patterns. Revelations had been seeping out in dreams for the last two months: images, phrases, patterns. She understood why Solas found it hard to hope: it would be easier to pretend that things were simple.

She had even managed to do it briefly after once playing through Trespasser: to think - he's gone, it's over. 

But Eleuia saw the silver and the gold: the sadness in his eyes.

And the terrible agony of hope returned: there must be a path, some way to save him, she had to find it, she had to keep playing. Find one more codex, do the achievements, the trials, play every damn romance in the game. Just in case.

_So tired. Must try and focus.  
_

****

Home again. Caritas took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on one strand at a time. Snowflakes, fractal time, Mythal's vallaslin, the world tree, dialogue choices in the games, a hare or rabbit warren. The unbearable combinatorics of fractals.

The need to connect with some inner Sylaise and walk the way of peace. 

The healer has the bloodiest hands, she thought, but it's minds and hearts that need the mending here. Minds are fractal hyperbolic networks, connections: emotional entanglements. I understand fractal geometry. Is that any use?

_So arrogant to think you could save a world. No wonder you can empathise with Solas and his pride._

The dead whispers echoed even here.

****

It had been easier to identify with Andraste when the dreams started. A mother, neither young nor middle-aged, who felt compelled by visions into action. So refreshing that that hero wasn't male.

Remember to feed the Mabari. The poetry had been a heartbeat, but it had stopped for now. No calling, just a silence.

_I could really do without the dreams._

****

Andraste as a mirrored Joan of Arc. She'd bought a biography, tried to understand the trials. The complex state of France, religious war, the hated enemy England.

Our Orlesian heart: _the fiercest battlegrounds lie within_ , he'd said. Or she had written.

She thought again of the lions of Orlais: the golden Fade; the blighted bronze; the chocolate lyrium; the watcher.

Who were they all again?

Possibly the four that sat within that Temple room: Fen'Harel, Elgar'nan, Ghilan'nain and Dirthamen. In that order?

And the magics too: fade, blight, blood and time.

****

The war: _It's not about right and wrong. It's about attention when you've been forgotten._

So how to find a truce?

Caritas thought of her first run with Eleuia. She'd lost The Iron Bull; perhaps start there. Where was that Codex about the thirteenth Age?

_Back into the warren._


	3. Time's arrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _His friend had to die because he thought they were people. A slow arrow breaks in the sad wolf's jaws._
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Caritas had thought of Sophiyel, the spirit of wisdom, before she thought of Felassan.

"Caritas, are you there?"

It was Eleuia calling. She had brushed her hair and put on a new uniform, one sleeve folded to the elbow to display her missing hand. A woman in command of herself once more, and not the Inquisition.

"Eleuia, is that you?"

No answer. Caritas opened bleary eyes and looked at the clock. 3.20am. Not again. An hour passed before she gave up on the hope of sleep returning. She crept out of bed, avoiding the creaking floorboards. Trying not to wake the family.

****

Eleuia was sleeping on hay bales, the dagger that stabbed Tevinter close by her outstretched hand. She dreamt herself awake, and sat up.

"Caritas," she said. "I made a mistake. More than one. Will you help me wind back time?"

"How far?"

"It may need to be a long way back, maybe even all the way to when I woke in Haven. I have been thinking about what Solas said: he knew about Bull's betrayal. We had so little time at the end. Why would he mention it if it did not matter?"

"Do you think Bull's betrayal could be avoided, Eleuia?"

" _Telanadas_. Surely it is worth trying. Even if it is only for his sake, and Dorian's."

Caritas nodded. "I agree. I will help you, but would you be willing to answer some questions before you take the vow?"

"Of course."

"This Winter Palace. Did you think it was the Fade? How did it feel to you?"

"It was beautiful, but terrifying. As if I was both alone in there, and constantly watched. My hand was hammering a heartbeat as if someone was trying to tell me something: _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_. I know now it must have been Solas' magic." Eleuia shivered, and for a moment the brave facade almost cracked. "What did it look like to you?"

"It reminded me of a chess game: that you were a pawn that was moving up the board, trying to be Queen," replied Caritas, thinking of the gold and ebon mace, and of an eerie certainty she had begun to associate with the Golden City. The references to bees were beginning to make sense now. "There's a book in my world, _Alice through the Looking Glass_ , where a girl steps through a mirror and does just that. She is helped by the forces of white and has to get the better of the red queen."

"Yes. Before Bull betrayed me it really seemed as if I was getting somewhere: the aurora in the sky was getting brighter; we'd found the mural of Fen'Harel. But after that, and the dragon, everything happened so fast. I knew he was close, and I had to see him, and everything else went out of my mind."

"Of course it did," smiled Caritas. "And don't forget, he still loves you. He will never forget you."

"The Viddasala said he would not outlive me."

"That could mean many things, you know."

Eleuia nodded, and looked again at the dagger.

****

They shared some chocolate and drank some tea. Then, quietly but firmly: "I'm ready now, Caritas. Did you have any more questions?"

"Just a few quick ones to help prepare. Can you remember how you felt, when you woke up in the crypt at Haven?"

"Terrified. I couldn't remember anything: just a few images of spiders and a bright spirit helping me. I still can't really picture my life before that day."

"Thank you. My final question, then. Why did you not befriend Bull sooner?"

"I was scared. He's a lot bigger than me. I had never met any Qunari."

"And are you still scared?"

Eleuia frowned. "No. I have beaten Corypheus. I endured losing my love once and found him only to lose him again. I will be even stronger this time around."

"You will need to remain kind as well as strong. Remember that I can only guide you in brief visions while dreaming: you will not remember exactly what transpired. Can you bear to fall in love and lose him yet again?"

"If I must. Do you think he will remember me?"

"He is powerfully linked to the Fade and to memory, so it is quite possible he will remember more of it than you. Even so, he will never admit this to you unless you gain his full trust. We both know how hard it will be to do that."

Caritas paused. This was always the hard bit. "I do this out of love, Eleuia. To reduce the risk of detection you will need a new name and a new face. Would you like to choose the name?"

Eleuia looked at where her left hand had been, and shared her memories with Caritas. It still seemed there as a ghostly presence: a whispered apology, perhaps. She could feel the hard press of his lips on hers, the blinding light in his eyes before he turned from her once more. And the pain of his lying. By the time they met she had not needed him to tell her he was Fen'Harel, but how she wished he had.

"A name, yes. _Virlath_ : the path of love. A promise that it may endure somehow. Shorten it to Virla." She smiled, fighting back tears. "Would it be... could I have red hair again? And Mythal's vallaslin?"

Caritas knelt down and hugged her friend. "I can do that."

Eleuia buried her head in Caritas' shoulder. "Will I still be me?"

"Do you believe that the person you met in the Crossroads was still Solas?"

"Yes."

"Then it is likely that you will still be you. I will help you remember what you need. And I will also hold you frozen in time at this moment. If there is a way to bring you and Solas together from here, I will do it."

"Thank you," breathed Eleuia. She released Caritas and instead grasped the dagger, dark purpose in her eyes.

****

Eleuia closed her eyes in prayer. "I vow not to reveal anything I may remember of the possible futures I have seen. _In uthenera na revas_."

They shared one final thought: an image of a mage, alone, embarking on self-destruction, in hope that some day, things might be better.

****

Caritas stopped time, then began to reverse it. _The lyrium flowing of magic rewinding the wolf_.

And this time the wolf would be on trial.


	4. A tranquil dart?

Before she pressed New Game, Caritas took a moment to remember.

She saw Eleuia running through the mirrors and the statues in the temple of Fen'Harel. She heard him saying: _Ebasit kata. Itwa-ost._ A bird had told her it meant _It is ended. They have fallen._

As ever, it was open to interpretation - and that was good. It need not mean the Qunari: it could mean Romeo and Juliet; Adam and Eve; Saarath and Lavellan; the earth and moon. Or indeed Banquo, Lady Macbeth, her entire family. It could mean all of them, or none. 

She remembered Eleuia reaching out in love: offering herself as companion only to be rejected. _It would be too easy to tell you too much_. Walking the  _din'anshiral_ , the journey of death.

Or another form of love: the righteous anger. I would have had you trust me! She'd felt he'd never been so close to kissing her as at that moment. He stood, tall and proud: the tension crackling between them. What Pride had wrought, indeed.

Still yet, the supplication: I will save you.  _My love..._ he'd said, before he knelt to kiss. And yet... had he kissed her? Or had he let his aura do the work? Eleuia's eyes were closed.

Wherever truth was sought, it had been beautiful. 

Somehow you have touched me with the Fade.

****

She came back to thinking about the tranquil: what Fen'Harel had said about not thinking they were real. Caritas found this part the hardest to reconcile with what she'd known of Solas. He had been interested in the dwarves, and they were completely disconnected. Solas had said he did not have much in common with the elves, so why destroy the world to save them? Was it really the best of all the options that were left?

It would have been cruel to say this to Eleuia, who she hoped could love them both, or all. But her initial instinct: this is not the same person that I knew - surely that had some truth in it as well? They clearly shared memories, and sometimes spoken rhythm: the line that spoke of dark and dreaming sleep. And she guessed she needed to find the way - _andaran atish'an_ \- that reconciled and healed the divisions, so it would not do to think of them too separately.

One truth did hold in all the Fades, forever marked: I will not let you just destroy this world. My people are real.

****

And so,  _New Game._ A new creation, born of water and the spirit, another female elf.

Caritas took Virlath by the hand and led her through. She switched on all the trials: why not go all in? She smiled to see the subtext - let there be some chaos! (Ghilan'nain praying to Andruil for her hares.)

And hares there were. Virla knew no different, but Caritas could hear it. Her people were real now in His sight.

****

Charter first.

Then Seggrit.

Minaeve and Giselle.

New verses of the Chant. She'd spent a lot of time in Haven. Had she heard them?

Suddenly Caritas felt: _the whole world changed_. Hope no longer agony, this penance could be joy.

No time to test it further, faith alone would have to do for now.

It was time to take the toddler to the park.


End file.
